Wednesday, December 13, 2006

So, I says to myself, "Self? It's time you updated for the good people!"

And here I am.

But I will tell you the awful hardship it will cause me. My keyboard is not cooperating and the "Y" key is being rebellious. Do you know how annoying that is? You wouldn't believe how OFTEN we English speaking people use that one letter! It's akin to hurting your little toe and never realizing how much you appreciate that one little member! I'm starting to think that the letter "Y" is terribly unappreciated. We turn it into "I"s and substitute "E"s.......but You with no "Y" is only "ou", and THAT, my dear friends, is French, not English....

MICHAELA UPDATE:

Michaela at the present is doing well. She wasn't last week, or the week before that. The weekEND before that, she was doing VERY well....but it only lasted 2 days. Sound erratic? It is. There's a song that says something along the lines of "And when you're up, you're up. And when you're down, you're down." That's kinda like what Boo does. Now, I wouldn't say she's been REALLY down--like wheelchair and feeding pump down--but medium down. Does that make sense? It's the drooling and staring kinda down. No biggy.

But it's kinda funny. When she's having good days, she's can be so NAUGHTY! I'm not joking! Like yesterday, I told her specifically to pick up her blocks. Now, don't bark at me here, I KNEW she could handle the task. She was doing well and comprehending plenty of other things, so I wasn't asking her to do something unreasonable for her current condition. And just to prove it to you, this is how she replied to me:

"I don't want to."

I don't WANT to? Ummmmm. Sorry, dear. That don't FLY in Mama's house!

So, yeah, she got her share of punishments yesterday. Just like a normal kid. If she didn't go to bed so early normally, I probably would've put her to bed early too! She was talking back all afternoon! HA! Ya gotta love it.....Keeps me on my toes....

PREGNANCY UPDATE:

And speaking of toes, I've got a few up in...my....ribs....as we SPEAK. Sigh. Discomfort is at an all time high these days. But I've only got 2 and a half weeks until D-Day (which means, "due day", and not "delivery day" necessarily). The baby seems to be doing very well in all aspects. Anyone wanna take a stab at the gender? Y'all can vote for what you think it is. We don't know yet, so it'll be a surprise for all of us. And in case you think this has anything to do with it, the heartbeat has been consistently in the 130s. My midwife doesn't subscribe to that "tale", but it's a constant, just the same. And no, I'm not carrying any differently than with ANY of the others--male or female. So there you have it. Have fun guessing!

And if you REALLY wanna have a go of it, feel free to leave me some name suggestions! We have names, per se, but I'm not stuck on any of them. It gets a whole lot harder to do the name thing the more kids you have. And I've sorta put myself into a pickle with the fact that most of my names follow a pattern of some sort. Like, all 3 of the boys have Biblical names. Not common Biblical names, mind you, like John or Paul. But the more unused ones. So naming a potential 4th son is not very easy, you see. Because we can't just feel right about naming him "Trenton", or something trendy like that with all his brothers fitting into a different mold. Same with the girl name. Both of my girls have more classical sounding names. (I don't care what anyone says, "Michaela" is a very OLD name.) I don't think a girl with the moniker, "Jordyn" would fit very well.....do you? Not that I like that name, but, well, you get the point.

THE HOUSECOAT SCARE:

Housecoat=Robe. Robe=Housecoat. Yankee term=Southern term, and vice versa. Ok, now that we have that straight....

I was making my kids breakfast one morning recently. It was nice actually, because my kids mostly eat cereal these days (due to my HIGH lack of motivation to do anything AT ALL). But we were out of milk or cereal or something in that equation, and they had to eat. So I fixed them a hot breakfast. I was feeling very "Martha Stewart"-ish. We had eggs, sausage, toast, and oranges. Pretty rounded. Pretty.....pretty! It was like IHOP without the stainless steel napkin holders!

But unlike the sous chefs of the illustrious International House of Pancakes, I was wearing my robe (housecoat). And, no, I'm not talking a "moo-moo". Yes, I have one of those, and Yes, I think it's a great addition to my morning wardrobe even IF 80-year-old grannies wear them. But, no, I was wearing the BIG, FLUFFY, LONG-SLEEVED robe that I got as a Christmas gift a few years back. In case you can't picture it, it's a lot like those ones they put models for hot tubs in. You know.....those big white fluffy things? That's what I've got. Except MINE is Midnight Blue.....OH YEAH.

Welll....it WAS midnight blue. Now? Not so much....

See, because I was being a good Suzy Housewife and cooking eggs on my gas stove. On a little omelet pan. With the heat up kinda sorta HIGH. And my sleeves.....

Did you know that flapping your arms like wings when you're ON FIRE, kinda doesn't WORK?

I do.

Noooooowwwwwwwww.

But alls well, my dear readers. I got myself to the front door and threw that thing off on the concrete porch like a hot potato. And there it smoldered. And went out.

And once my heart stopped beating in the 200 range, I got out my moo-moo. And cooked those kids some eggs. And they ate them. And everything was as it should be.

Except for my big fluffy housecoat. It is now sporting a new hairdo---frosted brown OVER midnight blue.

Oh well. Just goes to show that you can't kill Midnight Blue that easily. It's just THE perfect color!

SPEAKING OF FIRE......

We recently got our fireplace up and going! It is sooooo nice! We had been putting it off for the longest time because we thought the chimney would be filthy. And we knew enough that you shouldn't start a fire when you have a dirty flue. So, we just couldn't figure out how we were going to get it cleaned to the point of using it. Some older, wiser gentlemen from our church agreed to help us sort it out, but we all got very busy, and it kept getting pushed into the background.

So one day, I was like, "Honey, we've GOT to get this thing up and running! Can't we do something??" And so he tried to tackle it on his own.

He opened up the flue and took a look at what we were getting ourselves into:

Nothing. No dirt whatsoever.

The chimney was the equivalent of "squeaky clean!" Hooray!

And just to be safe, we bought some powder stuff that you put into the fire to help remove any residue off the walls, if indeed there WAS some there. So all the bases were covered. We went out and picked up some firewood that day, and now my husband is an official "Pyromaniac."

But I love it. Total ambiance! There's nothing like that real wood smell, sound, and feel. We're all enjoying it immensely. It just makes the house feel "magical" and comfy. Just to turn off all the lights, have some Christmas music in the background, and a cup of hot chocolate in our hands on these insanely cold nights. Ahhhhh....

You need to come on over and "sit a spell"....you'll love it.

THE WHEELCHAIR SCANDAL:

Oh! THIS one gets my goat! I can't even go into it too much, because it just gets me all riled up. But let's just say that my insurance company gave me every indication that Michaela's CUSTOM (ie: unreturnable) wheelchair was PAID FOR----IN FULL, and yet they are NOW retracting that notion. They are saying that the cost of the wheelchair exceeded my benefit level. ARGGHHHH!

Oh, there's WAY more info here that I could be giving out, but I won't. It's just too much for my mind to wrap around right now. I've got a baby due in 2+ weeks, and I just don't need to be dealing and arguing with insurance companies right now. Oh, how about NEVER? I don't EVER want to have to be dealing with junk like this!

Haven't I had to fight enough this year? Sigh.

In case you were wondering, MY "portion" of the wheelchair bill is (cough) over 2K (cough, cough).....(HACK)....

...Yeah, the wheelchair that was SUPPOSED TO BE COVERED.

Ok, need a new topic....

OUR TRIP OF THE DECADE:

On to happier things! Our vacation was flat out SMOOTH! Just tops. I can't say enough wonderful-ish type things about it. We just had FUN. Pure, "adult"-erated (as opposed to un-adult-erated!) fun!

But we didn't have a cabin....:( We couldn't seem to snatch one before they were all taken up. Thanksgiving weekend seems to be pretty popular in the Smokies, and not only were A TON of cabins booked, but the ones that weren't were WAAAAYYYYY overpriced (compared to the following weekend!). Or they wanted us to stay 4 nights instead of the 3 we could. Either way, it was a no-go. I was sooooo bummed, to say the least.

However, a dear friend happened to have a coupon to a really nice hotel that she wasn't going to use. I figured it was worth a shot to see if we could get a nice room, at least (hey, we had to stay SOMEWHERE!). And we did. A REALLY nice room! It was a "King" suite, which of course means that it had a king-sized bed, but it also had 2 other things that made it "Sweet": a jacuzzi tub IN THE ROOM, and a fireplace IN THE ROOM. Ooo-La-La! Va-ree Niiiiiice! It was clean, and spacious, and just down the hall from the Continental breakfast buffet, which was very good as well. An all around 5 star accommodation, in my opinion. I think I liked it better than staying in the cabin! Just because of the housekeeping and breakfast. Can you say "Fresh Towels?"

We did a lot of shopping while we were there. They had outlet shops EVERYWHERE. It worked out well for us to be able to get a good portion of our Christmas shopping done. Sure, I had to sit down a lot and take plenty of breaks, but it was so fun to not be on a time schedule. We didn't have to worry about getting back for the babysitter. Poor Chris ended up being a sort-of pack horse, but he didn't seem to mind that much. Needless to say, our feet were KILLING us by the time we were done.

Oh...how awful! We had to fill up the jacuzzi! Such hardships we endured!

We also took the time to see some of the shows and attractions, and that was cool as well. Very family oriented area, and there wasn't much we had to turn our heads at. Which is always a bonus.

I told Chris that we'd be fools to not do this again. Soon. Like as soon as #6 is weaned. It was a learning experience-----that we just HAD to do more "alone time." It really helped us click. And we weren't feeling so worn-down when we got home. Just mentally rejuvenated, and feeling like a couple....

....not a couple with a half-dozen kids. I think that's important. At least SOME of the time.

THE END RESULT:

So there you have it. My past few weeks in a nutshell. Now, I'm just getting ready for the baby. Finishing putting together Christmas gifts. Trying to keep my mind off of labor. Of which, I thought I was NEVER doing again. Oh well.....such is life.

(and if you find any "ou"s instead of "you"s in this post....well, you were warned! I'm not responsible for it! LOL!)

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Now that Asher is a full-fledged boy (as opposed to a curly headed baby), we found that going to the barber to get haircuts was getting a bit pricey. $8-$9 a head when you've got four heads to remodel every month is just more than I wanted to spend. I mean, that's almost $40! And you KNOW I could find something nicer to do with $40 bucks!

So, Chris took it upon himself to start giving every male-child (including himself) their monthly workout. He had done his own head a couple of times in the past to save us a few bucks, but he really hadn't done much with the boys. For some reason, their hair doesn't grow as fast as his does, and so we could get by with not cutting theirs for far longer.

Unfortunately, my dear hubby is quite picky about his coif, and will only have it a certain way---military flat-top style. He's had this haircut since his junior year in HIGH SCHOOL. I must say, it suits me far better than the alternative. He just doesn't look right with longer hair. And now that it's been, oh, 15 years or so of the same style, his head won't tolerate the change. Everytime we try to do something a little different, and grow it out a bit, he ends up looking like a Q-tip. Yeah, not appealling.

So, since he's had to do it in the past, cutting his hair wasn't a big deal. BUT, cutting the boys' seemed to present a whole different ball game. They like to have their hair like their Daddy's, and that's fine, but as we all know, it's different doing something with someone else's hair, even though you do it with your own. He couldn't seem to get it right. Either they would end up with a bald spot somewhere, or an uneven patch somewhere else. He became increasingly frustrated each time he would try. And the boys.......well, they looked a little haphazard.

So I felt is was my turn to take a shot at it. Not that I had any CLUE what I was doing, but I figured I couldn't do a WORSE job.......

Well, I'm happy to report that it didn't go so bad the first time I tried it. The boys looked decent and presentable. It wasn't a style they would've picked out, but it was clean and shorter and nice. I mainly used scissors to do it because I was too scared to use the buzz clippers. But as you can probably tell, NOT using clippers means that the hair is longer, and therefore gets shaggy a lot quicker. Like, two weeks quicker. That was annoying. I had to psych myself into cutting their hair the first time, and now I had to do it again?!? Arggghhhhh!

So I was determined to use those clippers this time. I chose the second shortest setting on the sides and back, and the fourth shortest for the top. Making sure the border from one to the other was something I was concerned about. I didn't want it to look like they had a bowl of hair on the top of their scalp. Nor did I want them to have "scalloping" on the sides of their head!

And for the second time EVER cutting hair, I think it came out pretty good! I may be able to refine my technique a little the more I do it, but this is the tyoe of haircut I like on my boys, and I was actually able to do a really good job!

Well, at least I wouldn't have asked for my money back if the barber did a job like this.....Poor Ashey looks a little bald, but I honestly did the exact same thing with him as I did with the other two. He just has really light colored hair!

Yours Truly.....

I am a 34 year old wife and mom of 6. This journal was started to chronicle our adventures with our daughter and the treatment of her rare epilepsy. However, while it was written, it became a journal of our everyday lives as well. Hope you laugh, cry, and think as you read....I sure did :)